Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
There is no question that the young guys are making large contributions to the team at this point.
However, those guys are mostly not 1st year rookies. Backlund is 24 and in what - his 5th season? Brodie is 23 and been here for 3 years. Russell is 26. Bouma is 23.
All of these guys (other than Monahan) have been developed to the point where they are now making full-scale contributions.
And they are surrounded by vets. You might argue that they are playing better than the vets, but you can't discount the stabilizing contributions that those vets are making.
Take some of those vets out and insert more 1st year rookies and the team is not going to be as good. It just isn't fair to expect it to be.
The team is going to continue to get younger. Next year is going to be tough.
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I think with the young guys at the start of the year there was still that seed of doubt whether or not they belonged in the NHL... so the vets carried them. Now the kids are believing they belong, and can play well in the NHL, and the improvements are coming faster and they believe they can win in this league which is huge.
The mind is a powerful thing, and using the players up north as an example, I don't think they actually believe they can win in this league so no matter what they do it always comes up futile.. losing was acceptable, and the rebuild was always the excuse.
With the Flames, they don't make excuses, and I don't care about draft position, I want to see this team go out and try to win every game... build that work ethic, the mindset, that belief in the younger players that they are good enough, and belong in this league, and most importantly they can win in this league.
Next year might be tougher then this year, or it might be better, to far ahead to make any real prediction... all I know is that it should be fun.